RSF said the government continued to “persecute the independent media” and that many journalists have been the target of death threats from political parties, criminal gangs and religious extremists.

“Yameen Rasheed, a citizen-journalist who had been investigating government corruption, was stabbed to death in April 2017. The poisonous climate of violence and impunity forces journalists to censor themselves,” RSF said.

Two other opposition-aligned stations, Sangu TV and VTV were fined MVR100,000 and MVR400,000 in March.

Three Raajje TV journalists have also been found guilty of obstructing police duty and fined. They became the first journalists to be convicted of a criminal offence in the Maldives in more than a decade.

The prosecution of the journalists was in stark contrast to the lack of justice for the abduction of Maldives Independent journalist Ahmed Rilwan, the arson attack on Raajje TV, and the near-fatal beating of the station’s former news head.

The Maldives is now ranked between Nigeria and Angola on the 2018 index.

Prior to the country’s first multi-party democratic election in 2008, the Maldives was ranked 104 – an improvement on its 2007 ranking of 129.

The country’s ranking in 2009 and 2010 reflected dramatic improvements in press freedom – including decriminalisation of defamation under former President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration – rising to 51 and then 52 on the index.